Russia Considers a New Anthem, Hoping for One With Words

Published: November 23, 2000

MOSCOW, Nov. 22—
The new Russian State Council today set Stalin's choice as the anthem of the Soviet Union against capitalist Russia's current theme music in the next round of the country's decade-long struggle for a popular anthem.

The Soviet anthem and the music from ''A Life for the Czar,'' an opera by the 19th-century composer Glinka, which now represents Russia, were chosen over six rival offerings.

The competition, which included a song from an aging pop diva, occurred at the opening session of an advisory body to President Vladimir V. Putin made up of Russia's regional leaders.

The effort by the pop singer Alla Pugachyova fell by the wayside in the competition to find an anthem, which has split Russia down musical and political lines.

''We listened to eight variations of the anthem and decided to propose two -- the current, existing anthem and the anthem of the Soviet Union,'' said Vladimir Yakovlev, governor of Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg.

''It should have new words naturally -- there should definitely be new words written for the music,'' he added hastily about the Soviet-era anthem, which was composed by Aleksandr Aleksandrov.

Mr. Yakovlev said deputies of the lower house of Parliament would make the final choice, but did not say when this was likely to happen.

Former President Boris N. Yeltsin imposed a little-known Glinka tune on the country in the early 1990's after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But the music has failed to stir national passions, and political in-fighting between Mr. Yeltsin and a recalcitrant Parliament dominated by leftists left Russia without any words for its ''first song.''

Last summer, the champion soccer team Spartak Moscow told President Putin that the current anthem had led to a loss of morale and a dip in form.

During the recent Olympics in Sydney, Russian gold medalists complained of having to stand in silence as the textless anthem was played during medal ceremonies.

The search for a rousing, popular anthem has now become an affair of state, and Mr. Putin was given a CD with eight songs and a variety of texts vying for the honor.

Mr. Yakovlev said the president had not revealed his personal favorite.

If put to a nationwide vote, Ms. Pugachyova, a hugely popular singer, and her longtime lyric writer, Ilya Reznik, might triumph.

Leftist lawmakers in the lower house of Parliament back a return to Mr. Aleksandrov's stirring Soviet music, adopted as anthem in 1944 under Stalin.

But others argue that Stalin's bloody purges make the music inappropriate for 21st-century Russia, and accuse leftists of seeking to take the country back to the Soviet era by reintroducing the song and adopting other Soviet icons.

The pro-market reform Yabloko Party supports yet another Glinka song -- the ''Slavsya'' march -- while its allies in the Union of Rightist Forces have yet to state their preference.

Polls show that only 15 percent of Russians like the current anthem and that 49 percent favor a return to Mr. Aleksandrov's music.

This is not the first time Russia has been lost for words for its national song.

After the denunciation of Stalin by his successor, Khrushchev, in the 1950's, the Soviet anthem remained without lyrics until a new text was agreed upon in 1977.